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Feb 25 2009   1:38PM GMT

The Issue with American “Date” Format



Posted by: Yusuf Salwati
Software Quality, Quality assurance, IT project management

In the US, the Month always comes before the day, so, February 25-2009 would be written 3-25-2009. I am not aware of any other country that uses the same format; I don’t know what is the history behind it.

But using this date format could create serious problem when dealing with international customers. In my work outside of the US, we have to send various types of documents back to US companies and not knowing the exact due date on some document lead to serious performance issues.

Also some software developed in the US have the same issue. Currently I am using a vehicles maintenance software that I bought from a US Company and the date format in it is based on US standards, although I will continue using the software, I have to inform all users about the problem with date format.

In order for US software development companies to make their product more appealing to international customers, software development standards in the US must be aware of these small but important issues.

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Gilly400  |   Feb 25 2009   3:13PM GMT

Hi Yusuf,

I believe the history behind this is down to how people talk - in the US people say the February the 25th, in the UK people say the 25th of February. Therefore, US dates are Month, Day, Year and UK dates are Day, Month, Year. I believe that Japanese dates have yet another format.

Whenever you’re dealing with different countries there are inevitably differences in how certain things are written. Decimals in the UK and US are indicated with a full stop or period and thousands are indicated with a comma, whereas in many european countries decimals are indicated with a comma and thousands are indicated with a full stop or period. This can also lead to great confusion - ten thousand would be 10,000.00 in the UK and US, but it would be 10.000,00 in europe.

By the way, February isn’t month 3 in the US (or anywhere else as far as I know) - but I guess that’s just a typo…

Keep up the good work with the blog - always nice to read.

Regards,

Martin Gilbert.